Electronic Signature vs. Digital Signature: What's the Difference?
“Electronic signature” and “digital signature” are often used as if they mean the same thing. They don’t, and the difference matters if you’re deciding how to sign something important.
Electronic signature: a mark that represents intent
An electronic signature is, broadly, any electronic indication that a person intends to sign a document. In practice, this is often literally an image — a drawn signature, a typed name in a script font, or a scanned physical signature — placed onto the page.
This is what PageFlow’s Sign PDF tool creates: a visible signature image you draw, type, or upload, positioned wherever you like on the page. It’s simple, fast, and suitable for a huge range of everyday documents — but it carries no built-in technical guarantee about who actually placed it there.
Digital signature: a cryptographic guarantee
A digital signature is a specific technical mechanism built on public-key cryptography. It typically involves a certificate issued by a trusted authority, tied to a verified identity, and it cryptographically binds the signature to the exact contents of the document at the moment of signing. If the document is altered afterward, the signature becomes invalid — that’s the mechanism working as intended, not a bug.
Digital signatures can answer questions like “was this document altered since it was signed?” and “is this signature cryptographically tied to a verified identity?” in a way a visible image simply cannot.
Why this distinction matters for PageFlow
PageFlow is explicit that its Sign PDF tool produces a visible electronic signature, not a certificate-based digital signature. It does not verify your identity, and it makes no cryptographic integrity claims. For a huge number of everyday documents — internal approvals, informal agreements, forms — that’s entirely sufficient. For documents with real legal or regulatory weight, you should understand what your specific situation requires before relying on a visible signature alone.
What happens when they interact
If a PDF already has a certificate-based digital signature and you edit it — including adding a visible PageFlow signature on top — the existing digital signature will almost certainly become invalid. This isn’t a PageFlow limitation; it’s how digital signatures are designed to work: any change to a signed document breaks the cryptographic guarantee. PageFlow detects existing digital signatures where practical and warns you before this happens.
In short
| Electronic signature | Digital signature | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An image or mark representing intent | A cryptographic mechanism tied to a certificate |
| Identity verification | No | Yes, via a trusted certificate |
| Tamper detection | No | Yes — edits invalidate the signature |
| PageFlow’s Sign PDF tool | ✓ Creates this | Not created by PageFlow |
If your use case genuinely requires certificate-based signing, look for a dedicated digital-signature provider rather than a visible-signature tool like this one.